Zen (禅) Philosophy

Preliminaries

The initial Zen

In brief

My dictionary tells me that Zen is “a Japanese sect
of Mahāyāna Buddhism
that aims at enlightenment by direct intuition through
meditation”.

The word “Zen”

The Japanese word “Zen”, or “禅”
(“ぜん”), is a deformation, through Chinese
(“禪”, pronounced “chan2” in Mandarin),
of the Sanskrit “dhyāna”
(“ध्यान” in the original
script), meaning “meditation”.

Keep in mind that “Zen” is the japanese word. When
insisting on authenticity (something I am emphatically not doing here), it is probably
better to use the Chinese word “Chan”.

Origins

Buddhism is a philosophy, or a religion, that was founded by the
Indian prince Siddhārtha Gautama, the first Buddha, presumably
in the fifth century BCE. (The Sanskrit word
“buddha”,
“बुद्ध”, means
“awake”, while “siddhārtha”,
“सिद्धार्थ”,
means “successful”.)

The Zen (Chan) branch descends from the semi-legendary figure
Bodhidharma, heir of a line of Indian patriarchs starting from the
first Buddha. Bodhidharma left India for
China (sometime in the late fourth century CE) and
started a new line of Chinese patriarchs. In that country, Zen Buddhism
was highly influenced by Taoism. It was introduced in Japan sometime
around the twelfth century.

Very succint description

Zen aims at achieving a state of mind named “Enlightenment”
(“覺悟”). Exactly what Enlightenment
is is not easy to describe, but very loosely described, it is
the liberation from the material world and its dualism. Enlightenment implies Oneness with
the Universe and abolishment of mental barriers separating the
Enlightened from all other things.

The path to Enlightenment is simply called the “Way”.
It is this path that the Zen adept seeks to find and to follow. Meditation, various mental exercises, can
help; so can the short texts called “kōans”
(“公案”). But there is no royal road to
Enlightenment.

The Hackers' Zen

In brief

The True Hackers

The True Hackers were a group of computer enthusiasts,
scientists and programmers (notably in Lisp) that originally
flourished around the MIT's AI lab, from the lab's
creation in 1959 to approximatively 1983 (with the Lisp Machine
debacle). Their story was immortalized in (the first part of) Steven Levy's book, Hackers.
Though it was originally born in the AI lab, the True
Hacker spirit, and its followers, radiated to various other locations,
such as the Universities of the American West Coast.

The True Hackers in their original embodiment may have mostly
disappeared today (notably because of the rise of personal computers),
but the original spirit of hackerdom, and its associated culture,
still lives on, notably in the world of the Unix operating system.
Their bible, the “Jargon
File” (or New Hacker's Dictionary) still exists
(and still is maintained) as a compendium of that culture.

The True Hackers' relation to Zen

The True Hackers were a particularly open-minded people, and
curious about the world. Many had a great interest in Oriental
philosophy in general, and Zen in particular. But, being generally
non-mystic, and because of their centers of interest, the Hackers
interpreted Zen in their own way and modified it to better conform with
their spirit and times, and with their sense of humor; thus perhaps, in fact, renewing with
certain of Zen's original principles.

GEB

There were probably numerous paths which led the Hackers to Zen,
but one book above all had an overwhelming importance in shaping their
way of thinking and stimulating their interest in Zen: Douglas
R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach
(ISBN 0-39-475682-7). Hofstadter quotes and discusses
many Zen kōans and connects them, in
his typical ingenious way, with the many other topics (such as
mathematical logic, molecular biology, computer science, artificial
intelligence, and art) discussed in the book.

Hackers' Zen

The Hackers' Zen is at once very different from, and very true to,
the original Zen. Its main feature is that
it reconciles the philosophy with science (even hard-core science), in
particular computer science, and also, perhaps above all, with
humor.

Meditation is in no way excluded,
but Hackers' Zen recognizes that there are many different roads to Enlightenment, and that each must find
his own: humor can be an effective help.

Gro-Tsen's Zen

In brief

Mine is a particular form of Hackers' Zen to which I have added the
teachings of several esteemed fellows and other sources.

Gro-Tsen

“Gro-Tsen” is David Madore's
name as a Zen master. The origin of the name is complicated, and not
worth explaining. It is definitely not Chinese (it has been
transcribed in Chinese as
“哥老特森”,
“ge1lao3te4sen1”, meaning the Old Brother's Special
Forest).

Richard Bach

Apart from the previously mentioned GEB, one other great
spiritual influence during my youth were the works of Bach: not the
Johann Sebastian Bach of Gödel, Escher, Bach, but
the American writer Richard Bach, through his two wholly remarkable
books, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (ISBN
0-38-001286-3) and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant
Messiah (ISBN 0-44-020488-7).

Glimpse at principles

Gro-Tsen's Zen claims, as the Hackers'
Zen, the compatibility of, indeed, the deep relationship between,
humor and Zen. But a special emphasis is also placed on happiness in
the material world, which is seen as completely compatible with
Enlightenment. And thanks mostly to Richard Bach's influence, belief is held
that anyone can be Enlightened and
that it's not even very difficult.

A disclaimer on authenticity

One thing must be made clear: all that is described here is my vision of Zen. I make no claim that it
represents anybody else's opinion, or that it is true to the teachings
of this or that Zen master other than myself.

Perhaps this page would better have been entitled “Gro-Tsen's
personal philosophy of life”, to remove all doubt. But since
the Zen influence is, at least, not absent—since the word
“Zen” is heavily overloaded anyway—and since I do
say a few things about the original
(historical) Zen, I allowed myself to trick readers with this title
(which is shorter, besides). So sue me.

In any case, if you need that sort of disclaimer, you are erring
from the Way. The idea that some teachings are right and others are
wrong, or that some are better than others, is basically dualistic. Zen is not about authority, nor
about authenticity, and you cannot follow a Master's path to Enlightenment, although a Master can
help you reach your own truth.

Zen Concepts, Relations and Teachings

Patriarchs and other Zen Masters

“Patriarchs” is the name given to the six
semi-legendary founders of Zen.

The first Patriarch was Bodhidharma (who
left India for China), called
“菩提達摩” in Chinese; he died
around 532CE. Legend says that Bodhidharma sat and
taught in a cave.

The sixth was 慧能
(“hui4neng2” in Mandarin,
“えのう” in Japanese or
“Enō”), who lived 638–713 .

Here we mention also a few of the other (later) historical Zen
masters we will be alluding to, so we can refer to them more
conveniently.

趙州 從諗
(“zhao4zhou1 cong2shen3” in Mandarin,
“じょうしゅう
じゅうしん” in Japanese, or
“Jōshū Jūshin”) lived 778–897. He
is at the origin of the famous MU.

臨濟 義玄
(“lin2ji4 yi4xuan2” in Mandarin,
“りんざい
ぎげん” in Japanese, or “Rinzai
Gigen”) died 866. A Japanese branch of Zen is named
“Rinzai” after him.

無門 慧開
(“wu2men2 hui4kai1” in Mandarin,
“むもん えかい” in
Japanese, or “Mumon Ekai”), one of the last historical Zen
masters, lived 1183–1260. He is the editor of the Mumonkan.

Enlightenment

Enlightenment, in Chinese “覺悟”
(“jue2wu4”, something like “awake-aware”) or
sometimes just “覺”, is a central concept in Zen,
right from its Buddhist origins
(since the word “Buddha” means, precisely,
“awake”). To reach an Enlightened (mental) state is the
goal of any unenlightened Zen adept.

As has already been noted, the
exact nature of Enlightenment is not easy to describe, and to do so
would anyway be contrary to Enlightenment itself. But we can give
some ideas for the benefit of minds still not free from dualism.

Enlightenment is a form of liberation: very roughly, liberation
from the material world, but that is not an accurate description
because it reeks of mysticism. To be Enlightened one must remove the
mental barriers one has constructed and the dualism of one's vision. The Enlightened is
One with the Universe.

Exactly how difficult Enlightenment is to each, is unclear.
Superficially it may appear as a difficult quest, a life goal's
accessible only to the happy few. But the answer, and the question
itself, is contrary to Enlightenment: for Enlightenment is as
difficult as you set it to be. You can travel as far as you will on
the path, and never reach the end because there is no end: it is only
when you know you have reached your goal that you are
Enlightened.

Being Enlightened is a very much like understanding a joke: often it makes no sense to spell out the
terms of the joke. Either you “get” it, or you don't (see
also below on the question of
suddenness).

It is also worth mentioning at this point that Enlightenment is
notmadness or a form of
madness.

Dualism, Logic, Words

Dualism is the general idea that two concepts, or two
things, can be opposed to one another. This is a very un-Zen-like
idea, one that prevents the Enlightened state of mind, in which all
these barriers are removed and the Universe is One.

Logic and words are mental tools which mostly
serve to strengthen the dualism of thought. Thus, while words (and
even logic, to some extent) can prepare the seeker to Enlightenment
(especially if they are used in unintended ways, such as in
kōans), they cannot bring him to it.
On the other hand, intuition, or direct perception of the
Universe at peer with oneself, is a spark of Enlightenment.

This is not to say that dualism is evil: Zen is not about
Good and Evil, for these are themselves dualistic notions. In the
Avesta, Ahurā Mazdā, the embodiment of Good, fights his
twin brother Ahriman (“adversary”), embodiment of Evil,
and we are probably much more influenced by this mental picture than
we care to admit. But Zen is simply elsewhere.

Furthermore, the very distinction between dualism and monism is
again dualism: there is not a dualist Universe and a Zen one, or a
world of logic and one of intuition, but merely two ways of looking at
the same Tao. Zen does not oppose things, it unifies them. One of
the fundamental precepts of the Hackers'
Zen is that even that bastion of logic and dualism that is (hard)
science is not beyond the reach of Zen and Zen ways of
thinking.

The author of this page believes
that the painting by René
Magritte shown at the top of this page is a wonderfully striking
artistic rendition of the Oneness that transcends dualism.
Chapter IX of Gödel,
Escher, Bach gives some more pictures, by
M. C. Escher which illustrate beautifully the concept at
hand.

Kōans

Kōans, in Japanese “公案”
(“こうあん”, something like
“legal case” or “riddle”) are short stories
(generally recounting the actions of Zen masters and patriarchs) used to train the disciples,
to encourage them to set reason and
dualism aside and reach Enlightenment through direct intuition.
In a shorter and perhaps more appropriate definition, kōans are
Zen jokes: in the original Zen's
form, the humorous dimension is not absent
from kōans, but in the Hackers'
version of the philosophy, kōans have been made into exactly
that—a (rather sophisticated) form of humor that tries to boggle
your mind and force you to Enlightenment.

Historically, kōans did not take a great importance in Zen
until master Sōkō and the
Japanese Rinzai school emphasized them. The kōans of the historical Zen often picture a rather cruel
attitude of masters toward their students: the idea is to corner the
disciple into absurdity and force him, figuratively spoken, to explode
and thus free himself. To my mind, the attitude is somewhat
reminiscent of some of the strangest cartoons by Gary Larson, with
their disturbing black humor. In the Hackers' Zen, kōans mostly emphasize
the comical dimension; the pattern is typically: master asks question,
student answers question, master imitates student's answer in a
parallel context that makes its absurdity obvious. There is a
distinct Socratic influence there. Gro-Tsen's kōans are more diverse and
show eclectic influence.

The Mumonkan

The 無門關 (in Japanese, “Mumonkan”,
or “むもんかん”) means the
“gateless gate”. It is a famous collection, published in
1228 CE, of fourty-eight (or fourty-nine, the
fourty-ninth having been added later) kōans (cases), each one followed by a
“commentary” and a poem. The kōans were compiled by
Zen master Mumon. He is the author of
the commentaries and poems.

The term “gateless gate” refers to the nature of Enlightenment: one who passes into
Enlightenment walks freely and knows no further barriers; but how can
one pass through a gate that is gateless? The name is a mockery at dualism.

In view of what has already been said concerning words and the role of kōans, it will come as no surprise that
the text of the Mumonkan often “makes no sense”. What may
be more surprising, however, is that Mumon's
“commentaries” and poems appear just about as
incomprehensible as the kōans they are suppose to explain. But
this should not be so much of a surprise either, for the commentaries
play much the same role as the kōans: not to explain, but to
Enlighten. Once again, Zen is not an exercice in hermeneutics.

MU

The ideogram “無”, transcribed “MU”
in English (it's actually “wu2” in Mandarin:
“mu” or “む” is the Japanese
pronunciation), has become much the same kind of hallmark-mantra of
Zen as the sacred syllable “ॐ”
(“ŌM”) has become for Hinduism.

This comes from a famous kōan, the first of the Mumonkan, telling of how master Jōshū answered to a monk who
asked “has even a dog the Buddha-nature?”:
Jōshū's answer was “MU”.

We could waste tedious hours trying to explain this MU. Basically,
the Chinese ideogram 無 means “no”,
“not”, “none”, “have no”,
“lack”, “not to exist”; this is a pretty vague
semantic field, but it seems anyhow that Jōshū is
not merely stating that a dog does not have the
Buddha-nature: rather, his reply is more something like “nothing
exists”, or, even more closely, a denial of the dualism of “is” and
“is-not” (or “has” and
“has-not”).

According to Mumon's comment on this kōan,
Jōshū's MU is the very barrier set up by the patriarch,
which to go through one must uproot all the normal working of the
mind: it is the gateless gate (and the MU
ideogram is the first ideogram in 無門關).

Now the Hackers, following Douglas Hofstadter, have made MU into
something rather different (or, if not different, differently
interpreted and less sacred). Namely, answering “mu” to a
question means refusing to be trapped in the answers “yes”
or “no” (which is certainly what Jōshū did, in
refusing their dualism). In the words of Hofstadter, answering
“mu” is to “unask” the question. (See also
the “mu” entry
in the Jargon File.)
Sometimes, as a pun, the Greek letter μ (mu) is used for this
MU.

The cypress tree in the courtyard

As for “MU”, this phrase is
another answer of Jōshū's,
in the Mumonkan (case 37): a monk asked
him, “why did Bodhidharma
come from the West?”: Jōshū answered “the
cypress tree in the courtyard”, in Chinese
“庭前柏樹子”.

(This has been translated in a great number of ways. The ideograms
mean something like “courtyard / in front / cypress / tree /
(child)”. Among the translations commonly found are “the
cypress in front of the yard”, “that oak tree in the
garden”, “the tree in the middle of the garden”, and
even stranger things. The “oak” translation apparently
comes from the Japanese reading of the ideogram
“柏”, which may or may not have been the Chinese
meaning at the time when Jōshū spoke this, or at the time
when the Mumonkan was written, I have no idea. But really it doesn't
matter.)

The answer is as deliberately absurd as the “MU”, of course, and quite comparable. But
this time the emphasis seems different. Jōshū seems to be
point out how inadequate words are to convey meaning; at the same
time, he recalls in a humorous way the unity
of the world.

Not only the answer but also the question merits further
examination. The reason why Bodhidharma came from India into China
is, of course, a very valid historical question, but it is also has a
symbolic level which is like “what is the inner meaning of
Zen?” or something of the kind. The same question appears in
the fifth case of the Mumonkan:
“Zen is like a man hanging by his teeth in a tree over a
precipice: his hands grasp no branch, his feet rest on no lib, and
under the tree another person asks him, ‘Why did Bodhidharma
come to China from India?’. If the man in the tree does not
answer, he fails; and if he answers, he falls and loses his life. Now
what shall he do?”

Concerning Jōshū's tree (not over a precipice), I am
also reminisced of Douglas Adam's famous “answer to Life, the
Universe, and Everything”, which is fourty-two, the only problem
being that the actual question is unknown.

Humor

This may seem disrespectful; an uncharitable description would be
that the Hackers did not understand anything about Zen and simply
caricatured it and made fun of it.

But in my mind this is not at all the case. It is not clear
whether the historical Zen masters were jesters or whether kōans
were meant humorously, but Zen is not
about authority. It seems on the contrary that humor is a
particularly efficacious way of freeing oneself from dualism and logic—which is essentially
what Enlightenment is all about.
And the state of understanding a joke is extremely close to the
Enlightened state.

So, one may ask, this whole (Hackers') Zen philosophy is just a
farce? Well, in a way, it is. But that doesn't prevent it from being
deep and profound. In a typical Hacker way (see the “ha
ha only serious” entry in the Jargon File) that is completely
compatible with Zen's own non-dualistic thiking, we see no
contradiction between humor and profoundness. On the contrary,
philosophy is something too important to be taken seriously.

The Point

At this stage, one may legitimately begin to wonder whether there
is any point at all to this Zen thing, or whether it is not simply
vacuous—a collection of meaningless texts (kōans) and a somewhat mystical emphasis
on an undefined (and undefinable!) concept of “Enlightenment”. Indeed, the
natural (and quite justified!) reaction of any rational mind to
something that cannot be defined, cannot be explained, and somehow
transcends the dualistic realm of logic and language, is to dismiss
that idea as empty. And certainly Zen trifles with emptiness (as in
the MU kōan) and absurdity in
general.

I have already observed the similarity
and relations between Zen and humor. And certainly if I were to
explain the concept of humor to one who had no idea of it (but a full
power of reason), I would be in a similar difficult position. Much it
is the same with Zen.

So I can perhaps get away by claiming that Zen is
“simply” a form of humor. Yet this remains
unsatisfactory, for it is also more than that. Better compare Zen
with an artistic practice, which tries to achieve a particular state
of mind, that shares some properties with humor, the drawings of
Magritte or Escher, or the phenomenon called “intuition”
in (otherwise) rational thought, though it doesn't precisely overlap
any of them.

Is Zen Madness?

All right, one may retort, but maybe Zen is madness. The idea
certainly seems tempting: Zen's refusal of logical dualism, its seek for a state of mental unity, are such things not to be
found in madness? And certainly the behavior of the Zen patriarchs
described in the kōans appears as
madness.

This is, however, a confusion of ideas. In the first place,
madness is certainly not a mental state in which barriers are
removed (as the Enlightened state). Quite the contrary, madmen are
encumbered with great barriers which they cannot rid themselves of,
and which often torment them; it is just that these barriers are
different, or differently placed, than the ones which plague mentally
sane people. This explains why madmen are not Enlightened, but their
conversation sometimes can be Enlightening (but not always; mostly it
is simply monotonously repetitious); and also why the behavior of the
Enlightened may seem like madness.

Nor is Zen randomness (much as the paintings of Magritte, which may
seem to be arbitrary combinations of a small number of fixed elements,
are not random, despite what it seems). Certainly, if we were to
produce an infinite number of kōans, in which Jōshū would answer “MU”, then “the
cypress tree in the garden”, then “foo”, then
“the cow jumped over the moon” and many other silly
things, to an equally infinite number of questions, we would obtain
randomness. But although each kōan in the series might have the
Buddha nature (as Jōshū's exact reply is unimportant), the
infinite number bring nothing. When there is no longer the element of
surprise to the reader, the kōans no longer fulfill
their function. So like in any other form of art, the trick is to
subtly balance the order and chaos.

Meditation and its role

As we have pointed out from the
start, the very word “Zen” means “meditation”,
so we might expect meditation to have a central importance in Zen.
And certainly, meditation, and in particular “zazen”
(sitting meditation) is the most visible part of Zen; but
there is some doubt as to its importance (in reaching
Enlightenment).

There is, or rather there appears to uninformed eyes to be, a
quarrel among Zen masters, on the importance of meditation (and,
parallel, on the way Enlightenment is reached). On the one hand,
“gradualists” claim that Enlightenment is a progress, in
whose steps meditation can be of help. On the other,
“subitists” hold that Enlightenment (being the sudden
realization that we are all Buddhas, whether we know it or knot), is
an all-or-nothing phenomenon, and that meditation can only prepare the
mind to be enlightened, not bring it about. As irreconcilable as
these points of view may seem, they are not completely contradictory. Indeed, the path to
Enlightenment is to be trodden in one's own mind: as sudden as the
realization of the Enlightened state may be, its prior acceptance can
be gradual. Each man's Way is his own, and for some it may be very
progressive, and marked by meditation. The important point, in any
case is not to mistake the meditation for Enlightenment. And
the idea is not to think of nothing, for it is not by putting our
minds to sleep that we chance becoming Awake.

TODO on this page

Calm (and serenity)? A “Zen” attitude.

Being good. Doing good. Judging good.

Mysticism: no mysticism.

Überwinding der Metaphysik. (The Deepest Question.)

Zen is no philosophy.

Walking the path alone.

Your world is yours. Freedom.

Happiness (vs. absurdity: recall Sisyphus).

The present: being where you want at the time you want and for the
reason you want. Eliminate the regrets of the past and the fear of
the future.